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Re: What do you make of the Ron Paul phenomenon?

Basically I love his domestic policy stance, but I've heard him speak on the war several times. He's a little to "cut and run" for my taste. However, he'd probably get my vote as he seems like one the most genuine politicians in a long time.

And ultimately thats what I want. I am a republican, but I have reserve about Guiliani and other mainstream candidates, simply because I believe that should they be elected nothing would happen. They would be too constricted by hand shake agreements, and would not be gutsy enough to make some radical changes. I just want someone who will do something, not just bide time.

Re: What do you make of the Ron Paul phenomenon?

You know, there was a time, not long ago, when the debate was about TV versus Radio. I think it was JFK who really killed the "radio politician." Ron Paul is only polling around 2% nationally (although some say he's around 7.5% in New Hampshire) but he's dominating the internet. Can a grass roots campaign get off the ground based on an internet led campign? Absolutely. Ron Paul has an enormous sum of money for a candidate who started among the second or third tier. But can he actually win? Who knows... Maybe the important point is the internet is providing a platform for him to be heard. And whether you like his policy or not, the man deserves to be heard. He's about the only candidate who has made me really think and reconsider my position on some major issues. Plus he's honest, which I respect, even though I certainly don't agree with everything he has to say.

Re: What do you make of the Ron Paul phenomenon?

I know little about him, but I do know that they were handing out Ron Paul for President stuff at the panthers game the other day and that there are Ron paul for President signs all over huntersville where I live. Thats the only signs I've seen for the presidential race so far of any candidates.

I will however say, the signs that keep popping up are against the town ordiance on signage, so that should be fun for his local campiagn office when they have to go back out and collect all of those.

Re: What do you make of the Ron Paul phenomenon?

Interesting Gyron. Of course, the amazing thing about the Paul campaign, it there is no local campaign office. I read the Hillary Clinton has a campaign staff of over 500 people. Paul has about 50 people. The people putting up those signs are all spontaneous volunteers who are not coordinated by the official campaign at all. It's really sort of crazy... I read an article the other day that even Paul is baffled by what's happening.

Re: What do you make of the Ron Paul phenomenon?

He was on Leno last night (Paul that is), and while his ideas are nice, there's no way 75% of them are plausible.

-He said he wants people to have the option whether or not they use SS, and the govt can't touch any of the money.
-Wants zero income tax.
-Go back to money being hard backed by some resource.
-Wants to pull out of Iraq immediately, and completely stop being the "police of the world," meaning no troops anywhere outside the US borders
-No allies with foreign countries, but be friends and work with everyone
-Free trade with anyone and everyone
-He wants very VERY limited govt., and go back to the original Constitution, no more no less.

In theory it's all great, but unfortunately we live in reality. If he was elected he would basically want to completely tear down and rebuild America as we know it. He even talked about how we should go back to how the country was ran prior to 1913. It's like he wanted to completely forget the past 100yrs.

He used an analogy last night comparing Iraq and medicine (he's a liscensed doctor). He said that if he was to misdiagnose someone, he wouldn't keep treating them the same way but stop. He said that's what we're doing with Iraq. We misdiagnosed the situation, went in when we shouldn't have, so we should just cut and run. If my doctor misdiagnosed some type of disease I had, realized it, then said "welp sorry, you're just going to have to deal with my mistake and because I did make a mistake I can't treat you anymore" I'd be one pissed SOB. He needs to atleast try to rectify the mistake, and try to find out what is wrong with me and treat that accordingly. Not just stop.

Anyways, there's my rant on the particular subject.

He's just living in a fantasy world if he thinks he could get a quarter of his ideas through Congress, and the ones he did get through would be minor compared to what he's actually running on.

Re: What do you make of the Ron Paul phenomenon?

Ross Perot was a real candidate...and was less of a nut than I implied in my post above. He was absolutely right about the giant sucking sound with respect to global trade...particularly impacts to Joe Sixpack, who now lives on just a couple beers a night with his $12/hr wage while Jane Sixpack has had to get a job to make ends meet...

I do think the country would have been better off with Perot. I don't think Clinton did a poor job though. Times were different. But, I don't think a Perot presidency would have stopped 9-11 and the culture of radical Islam...which is the overriding issue of our day.

No, but a Gore presidency might've......what? I didn't say anything...What was the question?

Re: What do you make of the Ron Paul phenomenon?

4.2 million in donations in one day, could get some people talking. Especially if they start seeing his face everywhere. Wouldn't it be interesting to have three real strong contender candidates in the race? That would be historical.

Re: What do you make of the Ron Paul phenomenon?

It's funny .... some of Paul's most "radical" ideas are not radical at all. In fact, he's VERY close to Milton Friedman who asked "How can we benefit from the promise of government while avoiding the threat is poses to individual freedom?"

By the way, Fortune Magazine says Friedman is the "economist of the century" ... Washington Post "the most influential living economist since WWII" ... Times "hundred most influential thinkers of all time" etc etc etc.

Paul is gaining momentum because he links foreign and domestic monetary policy. It would be nice to stay and fix Iraq.... but it's not free, it's tremendously expensive. And we're not likely to "fix" anything for a very very long time. In fact, so long, it could bankrupt this country.

Re: What do you make of the Ron Paul phenomenon?

It's funny .... some of Paul's most "radical" ideas are not radical at all. In fact, he's VERY close to Milton Friedman who asked "How can we benefit from the promise of government while avoiding the threat is poses to individual freedom?"

If completely getting rid of income taxes, with no increase in federal sales tax but completely just trashing the whole idea, isn't radical than I don't know what is.

He wants the Constitution treated as the original document and not a living/breathing one.

Some of his ideas aren't quite 180 degrees differently than how we do things now, but they're pretty damn close. His ideas aren't radical like we think of radical religionists that are fundamentalists, his ideas are radical in that they're a complete change of direction. The level of change he's calling for is way out in left field that have no hope of getting done.

Re: What do you make of the Ron Paul phenomenon?

If completely getting rid of income taxes, with no increase in federal sales tax but completely just trashing the whole idea, isn't radical than I don't know what is.

He wants the Constitution treated as the original document and not a living/breathing one.

Some of his ideas aren't quite 180 degrees differently than how we do things now, but they're pretty damn close. His ideas aren't radical like we think of radical religionists that are fundamentalists, his ideas are radical in that they're a complete change of direction. The level of change he's calling for is way out in left field that have no hope of getting done.

It's not radical when you think about the big picture. The idea is really simple. There are 190 countries in the world. The US is in 130 of them. We have military bases in over 90 countries. Paul says it's time to bring those troops home and stop messing in the affairs of foreign countries.

The byproduct of bringing the military home serves several purposes. One, it will save the US about $1 trillion dollars per year. Two, we can use our forces to secure and defend our borders (solving the immigration problem). Three we can use the savings to pay for certain entitlement programs that need to be funded - like social security.

In the meantime, we can allow young people to opt out of social security if they want to. We can also eliminate the Federal Income Tax so people keep more of what they earn.

Eliminating the Federal Income Tax would only require government spending to be reduced to what was spent in the year 2000. Does anyone believe it's too much to ask the goverment to spend what they did only seven years ago, if we can save almost $1 trillion dollars on our screwed up foreign policy? Further, you may think your income tax dollars pay for all sorts of wonderful goverment entitlement programs. But the reality is you tax dollars may for (largely) interest on our goverment debt.

Paul is not an isolationist. Paul would talk and trade and encourage foreign travel. But he would not subsidize foreign goverments with taxpayers (YOUR) money. Whether it's the $16 billion we gave to Pakistan or maintaining bases in Korea for the last 50 years, US foreign policy is tremendously expensive. And it's leading to the decline in the value of the US Dollar because the Federal Reserve simply prints more money out of thin air to pay for exorbitant spending. Ron Paul wants to stop the madness.

You can think of Paul's position in VERY simple terms. The goverment spends YOUR tax dollars on a foreign policy that is a complete mess. If we changed our foreign policy we could fix social security, defend our borders, end the war, bring our troops home, oil would drop $20 per barrel over night, and you would no longer have to pay Social Security tax or Federal Income Tax.

If we do not change our Foreign Policy odds are the US Dollar will continue to decline in value, oil will continue to rise, our troops will be in Iraq for a very long time (even Hillary Clinton says until 2013), you will continue to pay in tax almost 50% of what you make to the government. And who knows what socialized medicine or a National ID card or a border wall will cost. Tons of money.

And things could get worse. If, for example, the US atacks Iran we'll likely see $200 oil.

Re: What do you make of the Ron Paul phenomenon?

It's not radical when you think about the big picture. The idea is really simple. There are 190 countries in the world. The US is in 130 of them. We have military bases in over 90 countries. Paul says it's time to bring those troops home and stop messing in the affairs of foreign countries.

The byproduct of bringing the military home serves several purposes. One, it will save the US about $1 trillion dollars per year. Two, we can use our forces to secure and defend our borders (solving the immigration problem). Three we can use the savings to pay for certain entitlement programs that need to be funded - like social security.

In the meantime, we can allow young people to opt out of social security if they want to. We can also eliminate the Federal Income Tax so people keep more of what they earn.

Eliminating the Federal Income Tax would only require government spending to be reduced to what was spent in the year 2000. Does anyone believe it's too much to ask the goverment to spend what they did only seven years ago, if we can save almost $1 trillion dollars on our screwed up foreign policy? Further, you may think your income tax dollars pay for all sorts of wonderful goverment entitlement programs. But the reality is you tax dollars may for (largely) interest on our goverment debt.

Paul is not an isolationist. Paul would talk and trade and encourage foreign travel. But he would not subsidize foreign goverments with taxpayers (YOUR) money. Whether it's the $16 billion we gave to Pakistan or maintaining bases in Korea for the last 50 years, US foreign policy is tremendously expensive. And it's leading to the decline in the value of the US Dollar because the Federal Reserve simply prints more money out of thin air to pay for exorbitant spending. Ron Paul wants to stop the madness.

You can think of Paul's position in VERY simple terms. The goverment spends YOUR tax dollars on a foreign policy that is a complete mess. If we changed our foreign policy we could fix social security, defend our borders, end the war, bring our troops home, oil would drop $20 per barrel over night, and you would no longer have to pay Social Security tax or Federal Income Tax.

If we do not change our Foreign Policy odds are the US Dollar will continue to decline in value, oil will continue to rise, our troops will be in Iraq for a very long time (even Hillary Clinton says until 2013), you will continue to pay in tax almost 50% of what you make to the government. And who knows what socialized medicine or a National ID card or a border wall will cost. Tons of money.

And things could get worse. If, for example, the US atacks Iran we'll likely see $200 oil.
Now, which idea is more radical?

How about the one which goes against U.S. policy for the past century or so?

Re: What do you make of the Ron Paul phenomenon?

I'm glad someone gets the point I was trying to make.

I'm not going to debate what he says he will try to do if elected, because it's a moot point. Even if he does get elected he won't be able to do 3/4ths of what he wants, because he can't introduce bills into Congress. Even if he manages to find someone who thinks like him, a committee in both houses would have to approve it, before it ever sees the floor.

If for some messed up reason it does see the floor, you think 50% of Congress will vote for it? Get real.

His ideas are radical because they're completely opposite of the norm. Whether you think the norm is right or not isn't the question.

Re: What do you make of the Ron Paul phenomenon?

This raises a broader point. It has become fashionable among certain commentators to hurl insults at Ron Paul such as "huge weirdo," "fruitcake," and the like. Interestingly, the same thing was done to another anti-war medical doctor/politician, Howard Dean, back in 2003, as Charles Krauthammer infamously pronounced with regard to Dean that "it's time to check on thorazine supplies." Krauthammer subsequently said that "[i]t looks as if Al Gore has gone off his lithium again."

For a long time now, I've heard a lot of people ask: "where are the principled conservatives?" -- meaning those on the Right who are willing to oppose the constitutional transgressions and abuses of the Bush administration without regard to party loyalty. A "principled conservative" isn't someone who agrees with liberals on most issues; that would make them a "principled liberal." A "principled conservative" is someone who aggressively objects to the radicalism of the neocons and the Bush/Cheney assault on our constitution and embraces a conservative political ideology. That's what Ron Paul is, and it's hardly a surprise that he holds many views anathema to most liberals. That hardly makes him a "fruitcake."

Hillary Clinton supported the invasion of a sovereign country that had not attacked us and could not attack us -- as did some of the commentators now aggressively questioning Ron Paul's mental health or, at least, his "seriousness." She supported the occupation of that country for years -- until it became politically unpalatable. That war has killed hundreds of thousands of people at least and wreaked untold havoc on our country. Are those who supported that war extremist, or big weirdos, or fruitcakes?

Or how about her recent support for Joe Lieberman's Iran warmongering amendment, or her desire to criminalize flag burning, or her vow to strongly consider an attack on Iran if they obtain nuclear weapons? Is all of that sane, normal, and serious?

And I read every day that corporations and their lobbyists are the bane of our country, responsible for most of its ills. What does it say about her that her campaign is fueled in large part by support from exactly those factions? Are she and all of her supporters nonetheless squarely within the realm of the sane and normal? And none of this is to say anything of the Giulianis and Podhoretzs and Romneys and Krauthammers and Kristols with ideas so extreme and dangerous, yet still deemed "serious."

That isn't to say that nobody can ever be deemed extremist or even crazy. But I've heard Ron Paul speak many times now. There are a lot of views he espouses that I don't share. But he is a medical doctor and it shows; whatever else is true about him, he advocates his policies in a rational, substantive, and coherent way -- at least as thoughtful and critical as any other political figure on the national scene, if not more so. As the anti-Paul New York Sun noted today, Paul has been downright prescient for a long time in warning about the severe devaluation of the dollar.

And -- as the above-cited efforts to compel Congress to actually adhere to the Constitution demonstrate -- few people have been as vigorous in defense of Constitutional principles as those principles have been mangled and trampled upon by this administration while most of our establishment stood by meekly. That's just true.

Paul's efforts in that regard may be "odd" in the sense that virtually nobody else seemed to care all that much about systematic unconstitutional actions, but that hardly makes him a "weirdo." Sometimes -- as the debate over the Iraq War should have demonstrated once and for all -- the actual "fruitcake" positions are the ones that are held by the people who are welcome in our most respectable institutions and magazines, both conservative and liberal.